e turned to suggest
that they ought to be going home. Her flushed face had grown pale with
fatigue, but her eyes were radiant.

The return lived in Ann Eliza's memory with the persistence of an evil
dream. The horse-cars were packed with the returning throng, and they
had to let a dozen go by before they could push their way into one that
was already crowded. Ann Eliza had never before felt so tired. Even Miss
Mellins's flow of narrative ran dry, and they sat silent, wedged between
a negro woman and a pock-marked man with a bandaged head, while the car
rumbled slowly down a squalid avenue to their corner. Evelina and Mr.
Ramy sat together in the forward part of the car, and Ann Eliza could
catch only an occasional glimpse of the forget-me-not bonnet and the
clock-maker's shiny coat-collar; but when the little party got out at
their corner the crowd swept them together again, and they walked back
in the effortless silence of tired children to the Bunner sisters'
basement. As Miss Mellins and Mr. Ramy turned to go their various ways
Evelina mustered a last display of smiles; but Ann Eliza crossed the
threshold in silence, feeling the stillness of the little shop reach out
to her like consoling arms.

That night she could not sleep; but as she lay cold and rigid at her
sister's side, she suddenly felt the pressure of Evelina's arms, and
heard her whisper: "Oh, Ann Eliza, warn't it heavenly?"

VI

For four days after their Sunday in the Park the Bunner sisters had no
news of Mr. Ramy. At first neither one betrayed her disappointment and
anxiety to the other; but on the fifth morning Evelina, always the first
to yield to her feelings, said, as she turned from her untasted tea: "I
thought you'd oughter take that money out by now, Ann Eliza."

Ann Eliza understood and reddened. The winter had been a fairly
prosperous one for the sisters, and their slowly accumulated savings
had now reached the handsome sum of two hundred dollars; but the
satisfaction they might have felt in this unwonted opulence had been
clouded by a suggestion of Miss Mellins's that there were dark rumours
concerning the savings bank in which their funds were deposited. They
knew Miss Mellins was given to vain alarms; but her words, by the sheer
force of repetition, had so shaken Ann Eliza's peace that after long
hours of midnight counsel the sisters had decided to advise with
Mr. Ramy; and on Ann Eliza, as the head of the house, this duty
had